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Saturday, 6 October 2012

"Not so different from Harry" - Lyndon reviews A Casual Vacancy

SOME
THOUGHTS ON THE CASUAL VACANCY

What
Fats wanted to recover was a kind of innocence, and the route he had
chosen back to it was through all the things that were supposed to be
bad for you, but which, paradoxically, seemed to Fats to be the one
true way to authenticity; a kind of purity. It was curious how often
everything was back to front, the inverse of what they told you; Fats
was starting to think that if you flipped every bit of received
wisdom on its head you would have the truth.

J.K.
Rowling was right when she said in her Australian interview with
Jennifer Byrne that she had promised us seven Harry Potter books, and
she didn’t owe her readers anything. She might be wrong, however,
if she thinks that what she writes after Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows will
not be read through cracked and sticky-taped Harry Potter lenses, and
that the now-adult readers of her original series can ever hope to
conquer the insatiable desire to search for traces of the childhood
friend they’ve now lost in everything that bears her name. Hogwarts
casts a long shadow.

Rowling
has certainly tried with The
Casual Vacancy however,
to make sure this quest is soon proven fruitless. There is no touch
of Harry here, as all the wide-eyed wonder of her children’s series
is quickly abandoned for bleak and bitter realism. Those who, like
myself, had come to read the heavily guarded details of the novel’s
release as an indication of a kind of an Agatha Christie
or DowntonAbbey-eqsue idyllic
cottage drama, will soon see that there is more bubbling under the
surface than simple political competition in Pagford. In fact,
there’s everything; my friends Bill and Isobel have contrived a
game - what crime doesn’t occur
in The
Casual Vacancy?
(Hint: There aren’t many. Yes, probably not even that one.)

There
is swearing too; lots of it. By page fifteen I had to put it down for
a moment and take a breather. Was
this really J.K. Rowling? It
took a good while for me to de-tune my interior monologue, which was
always calling back to Potter and trying to reconcile the two
versions of Rowling as a writer. In the end trying to tie my portrait
of Rowling together was fruitless - as hard as it might be, the only
way to fully get to The
Casual Vacancy is
to push it away from Potter.

Once
you grapple with the world that you’ve entered - so much more like
our own, so much less like Rowling’s other England - after a
gradual warm-up The
Casual Vacancy is
an incredible novel. Dark and tragic, by the three quarter mark it
grips with the hardened intensity and oblivious midnight page-turning
that only Rowling can. It’s the kind of book that could, and
perhaps should, win awards bigger than the Smarties prize. There will
be an inevitable backlash from people who were hoping for a more
gentle novel of course, and expect many abandoned copies to show up
in second-hand bins and opportunity shops, as popular readers realise
that they were tricked into buying a literary text, but I think that
what Rowling has done here is more important than pleasing her old
fans - she’s proved that there’s an extremely serious heart
beating beneath the smoke and mirrors of the Potter series. Some of
us have been arguing it for years, but The
Casual Vacancy proves
it: Rowling is a serious writer. I’d like to see some of her
contemporary hit-machines, like E.L. James (who recently outsold
Potter with her Fifty
Shades series),
write a novel as intellectually engaging as this.

My
biggest fear about The
Casual Vacancy though,
is that it will be hard to keep it out of the hands of kids. As a 22
year-old I can rightly insist upon reading it, having (arguably)
grown up from my own Harry odyssey, but it’s difficult to imagine
that a 12 year-old version of me that had just finished The
Deathly Hallows wouldn’t
attempt the same. School libraries, I hope, will be wise enough not
to purchase it for their shelves, and parents are encouraged to be
vigilant: The
Casual Vacancy has
lashings of sex, drugs, domestic violence and hip-hop. There is an
ugly side to this sleepy village.

For
mum and dad though, I think Rowling’s done it again. She’s a
writer at the top of her game, and once the initial shock wears off,
she’s proven she can make that adult leap that many British
children’s writers - A. A. Milne and Roald Dahl as two examples -
haven’t successfully been able to. This is not a novel that
everyone will latch on to, but for those who do love it, it will be
an all-encompassing love; the novel defines and explores the problems
of an entire generation. For some, The
Casual Vacancy will
ring a truly resounding note, and hold a special place in their
shelves and hearts.

1 comment:

An excellent and well considered review. Dare I say it...I have not read the Harry Potter novels, a surprising admission from someone who writes for children. I did watch the movies and loved them. I hadn't planned to read A Casual Vacancy but after reading this review I will add it to my To Read list. It doesn't surprise me in the least that Rowling can surprise readers with the unexpected. The well of creativity that inspired her to produce the HP series is unlimited and she has clearly chosen to explore the possibilities and see where they lead. It will be interesting to see what she writes next.

About Me

The Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) is a volunteer run, not for profit, organisation that was established in 1945 and is comprised of branches of individual members who are passionate about children's and young adult literature. This is the blog of their Tasmanian branch.